


watched our bodies turned to ghosts

by folignos



Category: Hockey RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2335502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folignos/pseuds/folignos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If I read our story backwards, it's about how I un-broke your heart, and then we were happy, until one day, you forgot about me forever." - Joseph Gordon Levitt, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories</p><p>A story told in reverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	watched our bodies turned to ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bullwolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bullwolf/gifts).



> i apologise for nothing about this. another exchange fic for bullwolf, who asked for drouin/mackinnon, last time. i very loosely followed that prompt?
> 
> title from lauren aquilina's fools
> 
> as the summary suggests, this is told in reverse chronological order. so technically, it does in fact have a happy ending.
> 
> (i'm still not sorry)
> 
> thanks to jenna for fixing my commas etc, and to laura for looking it over and telling me to stop obsessing over characterisation

There are 492 miles between Montreal and Halifax. 

On bad days, Jo feels every single one of them. 

- 

Nate goes home because there's nothing to keep him here.

Jo sits alone in their apartment (just his apartment, he guesses) and wonders if he's part of the nothing. 

-

Nate officially retires the day before the regular season starts. 

- 

Nate walks with a stick, now. 

He stopped going to PT weeks ago. 

He doesn't talk to Jo. Doesn't talk to anyone, really.

Jo calls his mother and asks her what to do, but all she says is, 'Oh, Jonathan,  _mon petit_ _._ He just needs some time.'

Jo gives Nate all the time in the world.

-

The hit's legal, is the worst of it.

There's no one to answer for it, really. It was an accident.

Jo gets his very first fighting major at the age of thirty two. He loses two teeth, and one sixteen year friendship. 

He spits blood on the ice and doesn't return to the game.

They lose Game 7 in overtime. 

- 

Nate resigns with Montreal for five years. 

'I wanted to play where Jo is,' he tells the media. 'He's the best guy I've ever had on my wing and I think we can build something really great here.' 

'Montreal hasn't had a hockey team to cheer about since 2014,' the GM says. 'I think Mackinnon and Drouin can give the city some hope back, some fire. I think they can give us all another Cup.' 

- 

They play on a line together and it's like growing wings and taking flight. 

Neither of them has played like this since their rookie year. 

They give interview after interview after interview and Jo almost gets tired of smiling for photos. Nate's shoulder is warm underneath his hand. 

They drag Montreal to the playoffs for the first time since the Price trade. 

-

When Nate got drafted by Colorado, Jo was right there in the room, a couple dozen feet away. 

When Nate gets traded to Montreal, Jo's there too, with Nate's head in his lap, dozing until his phone rings, sharp. 

'Shit,' he says when he hangs up. 'I'm gonna have to learn to speak French. Or maybe I'll just get you to translate for me.' 

Jo grins down at him, calls him a  _gosse_ _,_ and goes back to carding long fingers through his hair. 

- 

Colorado misses the playoffs for the third year running. 

Nate is worn and rumpled around the edges when Jo Skypes him. 

'At least we get four months together this summer,' Jo says. 

Nate licks his lips, won't meet Jo's eyes. 

'I'm sorry,' Jo says. 

Nate nods. 'Yeah,' he says. 

- 

Nate's contract is up at the end of next year. His agent emails him a lot of stuff about contract extension. Jo reads it over his shoulder. 

'Are you going to stay with the Avs?' Jo asks, his feet tucked underneath Nate's thigh. Nate turns a page in his book. 

'If they offer me a contract,' he says. 

Jo scoffs. 'They'll offer you a contract.'

Nate hums in thought, and turns another page of his book. 

- 

It's snowing in Denver when Montreal plays there. 

Nate is wearing a truly hideous bobble hat when he meets Jo in the lobby of the hotel. It has ear-flaps. And fluffy lining. Jo stares at it for at least a minute and a half. 

'Why?' he asks.

Nate pulls him into a half-hug, half-headlock. Jo calls him a lot of names in French that are not suitable for polite company, like the very nice old man at the concierge desk.

They go back to Nate's house. Jo straddles him on the couch and sucks a bruise into the jut of his collarbone. He can feel Nate's erection pressing into his thigh, insistent.

Nate rolls them over and sinks to his knees, smirking all the way down. He needs a haircut, Jo notices as he winds his fists through the strands. His hair is softer than he thought, and then he doesn't really think much at all beyond  _fuck_  and  _pleas_ _e_ and  _Nate._  

- 

Montreal hockey is different to Tampa hockey. 

Jo can feel it thrumming underneath his skin the first time he puts the jersey on, skates at the Bell Centre in front of roaring crowds. He'd laughed when people told him Montreal hockey is all-consuming. 

The sweat beads on his temples in the locker room afterwards, and he feels like he did in his rookie year in Tampa. Like he could play forever.

- 

They don't talk about it. 

- 

They don't talk about it. 

- 

They don't talk about it. 

-

Nate kisses him on the stoop of his parent's house just as the air is turning sharp with cold. His hands are warm on Jo's throat. He says, 'I've loved you since we were seventeen and too stupid to know any better.' 

The drive to the airport is silent. They hold hands in Jo's parked car until Nate risks being late. 

Jo wants to kiss him again more than anything.

- 

Nate comes to Montreal to train that summer. 

Jo meets him at the airport, buries his face in the collar of Nate's shirt and can't stop smiling.

'You look like someone stuck a coathanger in your mouth,' Nate says in the car, but he's smiling too, fond, helpless.

'I'm happy,' Jo says. 'Shut up.'

Nate's never been to Montreal before. Jo takes him to Old Montreal and the Botanical Garden and the Basilique Notre-Dame. They go paddle-boating in Parc du Mont-Royal and almost capsize. Jo doesn't think he's seen Nate laugh like that in years.

They train and tan and complain about their diet plan and it's almost like they're seventeen again, raiding Nate's mother's fridge late at night and skipping stones on Williams Lake. They're both older, wiser, have a little more trouble bouncing back after games, but they're still young, and Jo feels like he did when he was a kid, when he thought summer would last forever if he wished hard enough. 

- 

'Your accent is getting worse,' Nate says, tinny through the speakers. 'Goddamn francophones. They're bad influences.' 

'My accent is fine,' Jo says, pulling a face at the computer screen. Nate's laughter echoes in his empty apartment. 

'I miss you,' Nate says, bare and honest and exactly the same, even with the scar over his eyebrow. 

Jo is earning four million dollars a year and he still can't buy WiFi that doesn't cut out every couple of days. He figures if there's a God, he's up there laughing at him.  _Sorry buddy :(_ , he texts Nate,  _mi_ _ss you too._  

-

Jo signs with Montreal because he's tired of being so far away from home. 

He loves Tampa Bay, has done for nine years, but when his agent calls and tells him Montreal wants him, he practically packs a bag that day.

He calls his family, then he calls Nate.

 


End file.
